QUEER SIDE OF THINGS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4561, 9 May 1923, Page 1

QUEER SIDE OF THINGS.

REPUTATIONS. (By Septimus.) Reputations are queer things. I’ve had quite a lot of ’em—good, bad, and indifferent The bad ones are the hardest to get; need quite a lot of working up, in fact, like a poor photographic enlargement. There’s quite a lot of other drawbacks to them. For instance, they’ve a habit of dying out if you don’t keep busy. It’s a case of he who hesitates loses the reputation he’s lost. And there's a lot of gravity Wanted. Force of gravity, I mean, of course. In other words, all you do must carry some weight. It’s not a bit of good taking the line of least resistance. You’ve just got to go eyes out all the time or lose the loss of reputation. I> knpw that doesn’t sound too clear, but it’s quite all right if you study it carefully. It’s just the queerness of it all that won’t appear too clear at first. Experience has taught me that when a man loses his reputation he’s just got rid of a thing he never had. Plenty will differ from me, but —• 3 />f course, I’m not exactly an expert on reputations, never having held an indifferent one for any length of time. It’s just the good and bad ones that worry me. And whatever I’ve had has been hard earned. No union hours or go-slow policy about it. But, there, I’ve known men who have earned good reputations without any effort whatever, just as. some- have greatness thrust off3t&em. If some dictionaries are to be credited a reputation is a doubtful quality. I have one before me now which says: “Reputation : Character attributed to an action or thing.” I don’t like it, and tnat’s all about it. Now, if I did want a reputation I’d know how to get it. But there are so many on, the job—all hiding their faults, theu* lives one continuous pose. If I did that I’d bother myself—and everybody else. I prefer to "take the cash and waive the rest.” An c.ld pal of mine, sometime known as Omar Khayyam, divorced his wife and took to drink —though he didn’t own up to it. in such an abrupt way—and to-day he’d lose me for reputation. In fact, when I read of him I feel like the boardinghouse lamb that hid itself under a green pea. No—as Lasca said: I want free life and T want fresh air—but as for a reputation —. So I hold out my hand to Lasca and I says, says I, z "put it there.”